Marionette
by YellowWomanontheBrink
Summary: A personal vendetta gone wrong...Alex struggles with his own developing powers while attempting to complete a morally challenging mission. This is a rewrite of my first crossover, "Don't Ask Why I was Inspired". Still, don't ask.


**Dear readers,**

**So I got inspired by seeing how different my writing is now than it was a year ago. And this is such a good idea for a crossover, and my other was was so ass!*Shameface* I've been contemplating rewrites. Guess I finally got around to it. ^_^**

**So this is AU for Alex Rider, taking a more tragic turn. And I like the later seasons of X-Men Evolution, so it'll probably take place then. (but it's a crossover, and there really isn't a plot plot in X-Men until they are on the run, and I don't want that)**

**This mean that though this fic will contain many aspects of my original story, it will also be radically different.**

**You see, what I'm looking to do now is blend the world in plausibility; I don't want to be those crossover writer that insert a character 'because I can'. Can I? Yes. Did I? Also yes.**

**But the best of the best crossover's I've seen always have a legit plot. REwriting is always hard, it took me almost three weeks to finish re-doing the first chapter (Mostly me trying to figure out how to defeat Wolverine T_T). Only after a slightly scathing review (a polite convo mostly smoothed it out)did I realize exactly how OOC I had a lot of the stuff in the story, how...how can I say this, lazy I was with writing. I rushed just so I could get to scenes I wanted to write. :p**

**Do I love that piece of crap I call 'Don't ask'? Hells yes!**

**Could it be ****_so_**** much better?**

**Oh. ****_Yes._**

**So what I will do in this little rewrite of mine is make a legit story, I will proofread and develop and all that jazz. :)**

**This means that updates will definitely not be fast, maybe one every 2-3 weeks. I will probably end up writing like this-**

**Schoolwork before all! (I mean it. I put myself on hiatus if my grades drop below a C, but not writing/reading/watching ****_anything _****is really painful, so these never last too long)**

**Original fiction (Something I take more pride in than my fanfiction...though unfortunately, my first finished story is just as confusing as 'Don't Ask') (BTW, I have the same username on FP ;D)**

**Whatever gift!fic I'm working on at the moment**

**"Through Life and Loss," a Nurarihyon no Mago fic I write**

**"Marionette" (Ding! Ding! This one!)**

**Random fanfics/fics I may/may not publish.**

**As you can see, you may have to wait just a little while for updates. Doesn't mean I'll be updating in six month hiatus period (god forbid anything like a ****_year_****), but it won't go up as fast as my original fic did. I was in middle school and had a lot of free time. Not so much in high school. DX**

**Anyway, thanks for clicking on this link (so sure you could have so much better stuff to do with your time) and checking out my story. I'll stop talking now. Please review! Thank you!**

**{And if you just read that whole note I like you already}**

**~YellowWomanontheBrink**

Alex was crouched in the dark brush early in the morning of a rather tedious Monday. He was watching his latest Target: Dr. Charles Xavier. He had gotten a request to kill the leaders of mutant schools all over the world, his latest had been Emma Frost, a woman and her demonic mutant students had been put down neatly by Alex all in one night. That was also when _it_ had happened.

He shook his head. He had to focus. Taking down the old paraplegic should be easy; he was confined to his chair and was faced towards him at an almost impossible angle. That was what Alex did best. The impossible.

He lifted his assault rifle with the silencer placed firmly on it. He watched Target wave goodbye to his students, his _mutant_ students. He had paid an anonymous hacker into Xavier's database through an untraced laptop,courtesy of Smithers, and found files on almost every single mutant that was ever in contact or sensed with Xavier's programs; their names, power's power levels, address, places of origin… everything. Alex had spent weeks committing it all to memory; he had been spending a long time preparing for this specific mission ever since the man had first appeared on the news. The pretty African woman next to him with just a bit too much makeup called herself Storm, and she was extremely dangerous by his standards as she stood in the way of Alex and his Target. Not to mention her scary formidable powers, and her finesse in using them. He shuddered.

He saw his Target lean closer to the woman and Alex leaned forward, careful not to fall out of the tree.

"There is someone here," he read Xavier's lips, "And he is blocking me out of his mind."

_So that is what the Target wanted,huh?_ Alex thought shrewdly. He had always kept very much to himself ever since Jack died and he took his revenge. Not even the most powerful telepath would enter his mind if he did not want it done. Concentration was a powerful skill, adn if Alex was focusing on one thing-in this particular situation, Xavier-what was there to 'read'? It would be like trying to read the mind of an animal. And if he did loose focus and was discovered, he was willing to kill himself before he let capture happen.

Now exiting the mansion was a short man with a large nose and gruff facial hair.

"Logan, do you sense anything? I can feel a presence but I don't hear anything no matter how hard I try."

The man, Logan, smelled the air rather oddly, and pointed right to where Alex was.

"Right there. He smells like gunpowder, and I don't like his intentions."

"Go check."

The man walked over to the bordering forest and started going quickly through the brush silently. Alex slung his gun back over his back and ran; Logan was much too close for his liking.

_Logan… calls himself Wolverine. Invincible metal bones. Genetically altered to make the perfect human weapon. Grows three sharp claws from his knuckles._ Alex silently recited when he felt Logan crashing behind him, and he started running faster and faster in to the forest where he was hiding for days, feeling the short man behind was fast, but this man was more adept at running through the wilderness.

He slung his gun off his shoulder and put himself into a fighting stance just as he was slammed into from the side. A scratching metal sound rang through the air. Alex was grateful just at that moment for the black face gauze he wore over his nose and mouth, and the bright blue contacts in his eyes. He opened his eyes to find three sharp sword- like protrusion inches away from his face. He ran his eyes over everything to assess the situation he was currently stuck in.

He quickly knocked out Wolverine's legs from beneath him and thrust his knee up into his stomach as he fell down.

And thus the fight began.

Alex dipped down stomping in for a low blow and ran, ignoring the loud roar of pain behind him. Logan recovered quickly, and he scowled internally, _didn't this man know how to stay down?_

He ducked under a branch, starting to pant from the exertion of staying ahead of the genetically altered man.

_I have to get him to stop...I can't aim and shoot, and I don't think I could beat him in a fist fight, no matter how skilled I am. Probably break my fist; my whole fucking leg hurts from stomping his balls...and he was up just like that._

A tree limb slammed to the ground in front of him, and he nimbly dodged the swing of the blades. His heart was pounding. There was a reason he was an assassin, and that was that he did not do good in close quarters.

He ran a sharp left, and his pursuer followed in an easy diagonal, as if he could predict his every move. Alex forced the panic down-panic that used to consume him when he was younger, and less experienced, and decided against zigzagging. Whatever confidence he had was quickly diminished as he felt his lungs burn with pain and his muscles heat up with the pain of keeping up at this speed.

Goddammit, he couldn't even _hear_ any tired sounding breaths from Wolverine.

Scanning the air above him, he looked around the treetops for a low branch; he had seen this pulled off quite nicely by the more careless agents-

_There one is..._

About 50 meters ahead, he slowed slightly, but yelped as he felt air whoosh by his neck as the blades zoomed close to his throat. Killing his momentum and rolling ungracefully, he just barely dodged the lighting fast second strike from the other hand.

He rolled clumsily down the slight slope, not at all like the assassin he was and more like an uncoordinated teenager. The short, stocky man stood at the top of the 'hill' and Alex was just slightly frightened to see he wasn't even breathing like he had just been chasing an agile and rather fit young man.

Alex stood, his legs like jelly, fingering his last resort; from a strap on the inside of his thigh he yanked hard and pulled out a gun. A harmless gun (to most) because it merely sent out a pulse of electricity.

_Shit, you've got to be kidding me, _he thought desperately. The only thing that _this_ particular gun was good for was for disabling cameras. He hadn't been expecting a confrontation. _Why don't I learn...strap the firearms to the left thigh..._

His mind was in slow motion, and as Wolverine began to approach him, the spy in him noticed he was speaking. But the words didn't reach Alex. The only thing that ran through his mind was a mantra..._kill him...he's a threat...he knows about that..._

An irrational thought; no one could possibly know about _that._ That was his little secret. Well, his and the dead.

"Loook kiiiiiidddd..."

_What?_

_"I dooooon't-t-t-t- k-n-n-n-nooooowww wh-wh-what ya-you're..."_

He raised the useless gun, hands unsteady and breathing hard. The trees were in technicolor. His lips twitched though not nearly as hard as his fingers.

"_the ta-ta-ta-toy and-"_

He fired.

=0=

Logan stopped before the heaving boy, slightly impressed despite himself at how fast (for how _long_) the young man with the covered face had managed to stay ahead of him. He clenched a somewhat large gun in his hands, but he wasn't stupid; from his experience in wartime he could tell it wasn't legit, wasn't loaded. A wiry filled cartridge bulkily was clicked in the middle of the device, and the thin gloved hands that clenched held it up, shaking violently where they should have been steady-the kid was going to end shooting himself or something in the air with...whatever that was.

"Look kid, I don't know who you are, or what you're doing, but you need to get rid of the toy. This isn't a game. We can do it the hard way, or-"

And it clicked loudly, and the boy screamed and dropped it, fingers still up and twitching wildly, and something felt...wrong. his advanced senses could feel it, and it unnerved him.

And in a split second he was frozen, thousands of thin strands connected to covulsing hands before his skin and his bones were set on fire. The electrolodes had connected his sternum-had he been suited, he might have been safer. His eyes rolled up in his head and he slumped to ground.

Metal conducts electricity very well.

=0=

Alex gasped as his arms stated shaking, and though no one could see it, schooled his panicked expression back into one of apathy, throwing away the modified taser with disgust. His hands tingled, as if to whisper, _you're one of them. _The high voltage left his head ringing and his teeth adn face numb; his heart pounded quickly in his chest, but whether from the electricity or apprehension, he didn't know.

He was no mutant. He wasn't some sick freak like-

His eyes wandered down to the stocky-now incapacitated-pursuer, and he pursed his his thin, hidden lips.

He was well aware whatever had managed to take out Wolverine wasn't just the electricity in the overpowered taser.

* * *

When the kids had come home from their school and Logan still had not returned, Xavier was truly worried.

"Scott," he had told his first pupil, "Get Jean and a squad and go find Logan. He has been missing since this morning. Be very careful."

The departed to find nothing in the forest but a burned Wolverine slumped over deep, deep in the forest.

"Oh my God!" Kitty shrieked in horror. "What happened?"

Scott raised an eyebrow behind his visor and kneeled down next to the man, who let out a low groan and curled his fingers tight. Just as Scott was about to flip him over to check his pulse and if necessary, any emergency treatment, Logan's eyelids lifted slowly. His eyes were wandering and his face was tight. Scott tapped him lightly on the shoulder, but pulled his gloved hand back quickly with a low hiss of pain.

"Crap, he shocked me...Kitty, go with Kurt back to the mansion and tell Mr. McCoy to ready a spot in the medical wing. I think this might be serious..." he scowled as he ignored the tingle in his hand and flipped Logan over, eyes drawn immediately to the large burn in the base of his neck.

"This _is_ serious," he muttered lowly, too quiet for anyone else to hear. Jeans face twisted in worry as she dropped to her knees beside her friend.

* * *

**Yes, yes, I know it's slow, and really short, but I wanted to put this out there! Hope you enjoyed this first chapter!**

**And this rewrite will probably take a radically different turn than the original-probably. Yeah. So feel free to read (and maybe review?) the old one? Tell me if you like this new chapter or the other better, and which is better overall. Any particular flaws in my writing I should watch out for as I write this? Plot ideas? Things you'd like to see happen? Tell me! Please review. Thanks for reading!**

**~YellowWomanontheBrink,**

**Feb.6.2013**


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